celebration of an adventure

I'm not sure this qualifies as an adventure, but maybe.

On 12 August 2012, I declared a hiatus from participating in open mics, thinking I had grown too fat - meaning after maybe a dozen steps I would run out of breath.  I thought a healthier diet and exercise would whip that right off.

It didn't.  On 28 August, I admitted I wasn't making much difference and my breathlessness might be getting worse.  Lindy took me to Kaiser and I surrendered.

Whoo!  I didn't know.

I had fluid in my lungs.  My blood had about half its expected ability to carry oxygen to my body.  My ventricles were beating at twice their expected rate, and my atrea even faster than that.  My potassium was down, my sodium was down from their expected levels.  If there were other problems, I've forgotten.

Kaiser tackled my heart rate, anemia, and fluid in my lungs first.  A transfusion helped with the anemia.  A process I didn't understand involved  saline IVs and a catheter.  I surrendered a lot of fluid, a lot, including the fluid in my lungs, apparently.  The doctors experimented with several drugs, I think, and several dosages, and brought my heart rate down to more nearly normal.

Apparently the damage to my atrea is permanent though.  They will never work quite right again, and may go into fibrillation again - the wild beating.  (Whoever I told that the word is fibulation, I was wrong.  I apologize.)

That freed the doctors to work on my potassium and sodium levels.  They did, and won.

The cardiologist experimented some more with drugs and dosage, and found a gentler way to control my heart rate.  She kept me another day to make sure,

Kaiser let me come home, but I have to go back for follow-up appointments with my primary care physician, my cardiologist, and a urologist.  Oh, and a class for taking this condition - congestive heart failure - seriously, and following directions about medications, diet, exercise, and seeing my doctor.

Hmpf!  Still, that's what's so, and I'll live with it.

So now I'm back to getting my strength and endurance back.  The doctors say that will take time.  The good news is that I can walk - well, toddle - about the apartment already.

And so now to find a way back to poetry-land again.  My first creative act was to write this.  I have, so maybe I've found the trail-head too.

I hope to see you soon, and with new poems.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti (in an interview today) said that one becomes a poet because one can't help it, "No sane person would choose this!"

learning

he knew the mind was a fragile structure
and worse, one that doctors could tinker with
yet it was all he had to work with
by day rejecting lies teachers told
in the dark reciting things he did know
mathematics he could prove, so it must be so
men killed and damaged each other, women, and kids
broke their bodies and twisted the world
police were not friends, they took you back
some people you could trust but damn near not find
and if you grew up to be a man, any lie you told was true
if he told himself these often enough, sleep would come
and he'd wake early enough to forget his dreams
on purpose, before anyone asked
then dress and smile for the morning people
smile and walk to the school people
then come home and write what they wanted him to
til it was time again to remind himself
of what he could count on as true

when aloneness is not solitude

life is sometimes a lonely walk in a carnival
all around you the rides cacophonate
children run and squeal and giggle
grownups wander smiling, but cautiously
on watch for pickpockets, kidnappers, thieves
as if they would flock to the noise and crowds
who normally ply their trades where and when
other business people do, or in the dark
young people laugh and walk as if unseeing
except each other, and there you are
one ticket for the carousel, one for the ferris wheel
one for the tilt-a-whirl, one ticket for the mirrors
where at least some of them show a pair of you
or you stretched out then squished down
exactly like you feel walking alone in a holiday
no matter how often people bump into you
walking straight through a carnival swirl

clear and present

a man I know was stopped this week
for walking dogs at dawn
there is no law against that
but good people don't do it
besides he was brown
and had tattoos
a clear and present danger
in a nice neighborhood
you know how to translate that
when I was younger
police would stop me too
if ever I walked across
the Lincoln and Cadillac blocks
that intruded into
our Chevies and Plymouths town
I wasn't brown, but had a ponytail
and beard, wore jeans and
cowboy boots, and so constituted
also a clear and present danger
I was a good example of what
mommies did not want kiddies
to grow up into, so cops would stop me
if I took the short route to a phone booth
not so much if I walked around
the Lincoln and Cadillac blocks
we had phone booths then
a place where Clark Kent might change
into Superman without notice
or we normal people might make a call
in public but in private
I rented an apartment
but did not need a phone
except at evening or at dawn
when I would walk, good people didn't
not anywhere that they could drive
or better yet be driven to
another good example
of bad behavior, walking
and not having a phone
you see, the cops had plenty of reasons
for their suspicions
and do today, there is no law
against being brown or having tattoos
but nice people don't do either

childlike not childish

Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play. -Heraclitus, philosopher (500 BCE)

good ideas

The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas. -Linus Pauling, chemist, peace activist, author, educator; Nobel Prize in chemistry, Nobel Peace Prize (1901-1994)

World class ice skating is physics made beautiful.

There is but one god, Death; there is but one prayer, "Not yet." - religious instruction from Sword Master in Game of Thrones

rhyme

the mind is a curious device
works with what it knows ain't so
as if as if were so enough
to add to what we know